{"id":204,"date":"2005-09-14T23:23:33","date_gmt":"2005-09-15T03:23:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/longestnow\/2005\/09\/14\/directing-rage-locally-there-will-"},"modified":"2005-09-14T23:23:33","modified_gmt":"2005-09-15T03:23:33","slug":"directing-rage-locally-there-will-be-no-superdomes-in-our-city","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/longestnow\/2005\/09\/14\/directing-rage-locally-there-will-be-no-superdomes-in-our-city\/","title":{"rendered":"Directing rage locally : “There will be no Superdomes in our city”"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

Most of the people writing about New Orleans and other destroyed cities are confused about where to direct their purest<\/span>, most blazing anger.  <\/p>\n

It shouldn’t be directed at the federal officials or other
\nmeta-organizers who failed
\nto organize or prepare in time — although they were terribly
\nnegligent, each relying on other parts of a broken system, and have
\nbeen wasting funds and abusing their responsibilities for years. 
\nThey deserve scorn and shiny, new jobs<\/span> in a sector that can tolerate
\nincompetence.  And their large, organized systems [FEMA<\/span>, more recently parts of Homeland Security<\/span>]
\ncan be blamed for the hundreds of billions of dollars of damage and
\nother invaluable losses of private, personal historicity, which were
\n“5-year preventable”, even “1-year preventable”.  But these
\nsystems did not lead to the immediate deaths and serious illnesses in
\nthe city, nor to the massive damage and losses which were preventable days after <\/span>the storm hit.   <\/p>\n

No, the proper targets<\/span> for this most pressing rage are local <\/span>officials;
\npolice and government officials and other forces in NO and surrounding
\ncities; regional and state planners with access to the closest sources
\nof help (and with supporters and constituents comprising the owners of
\nlocal trucking, shipping, and security outfits) who failed to do what
\nwas necessary to save their immediate neighbors<\/span>. Even, saints preserve us, the office of Mayor Nagin was extensively complicit in this catastrophe.  <\/p>\n

Hopefully you’ve already read the remarkable essay by Larry Bradshaw <\/span>and Lorrie Slonsky<\/span>,
\nEMS workers from San Francisco who were in town for a conference, on
\ntheir adventures trying to escape the city on foot.  Below is a
\nstreamlined excerpt, to illustrate my point. <\/p>\n

[Day 2 : 500 people left in the hotels in the French Quarter] 
\nWe were a mix of foreign tourists, conference attendees like ourselves,
\nand locals… We were repeatedly told that all sorts of resources
\nincluding the National Guard and scores of buses were pouring in to the
\nCity.
\n…
\nWe pooled our money and came up with $25,000 to have ten buses come and
\ntake us out of the City.  Those who did not have [were] subsidized
\nby those who did… The buses never arrived. We later learned [they had been] commandeered by the
\nmilitary.<\/p>\n

By day 4<\/span>, our hotels had run
\nout of fuel and water… [the hotel] told us to report to the convention
\ncenter to wait for more buses.   
\n…
\nThe [National] Guards told us we would not be allowed into the
\nSuperdome… and that the police were not allowing anyone else in[to
\nthe Convention Center]…  we asked, “<\/span>If we can’t go to the only 2 shelters in the City, what was our alternative?” The guards told us that that was our problem, and no they did not have extra water to give to us.
\n…
\n[Now down to a group of 200]
\nWe walked to the police command center at Harrah’s on Canal Street…
\nthe police commander [told us to] cross the [Crescent City Connection bridge]
\nwhere the police had buses lined up to take us out of the City. 
\nThe commander turned to the crowd and stated emphatically, “<\/span>I swear to you that the buses are there.“<\/p>\n

[Group of unknown size, grows while approaching the bridge]
\nWe organized ourselves…  As we approached the bridge, armed Gretna <\/span>sheriffs
\nformed a line across the foot of the bridge. Before we were close
\nenough to speak, they began firing their weapons over our heads… The
\nsheriffs informed us there were no buses waiting.  <\/p>\n

We questioned why we couldn’t cross the bridge anyway [as] there was little traffic on the 6-lane highw ay.  They responded that the West Bank was not going to become New Orleans and there would be no Superdomes in their City<\/span>. 
\n…
\nAll day long, we saw other families [attempt to cross the bridge]…
\nonly to be turned away.  Thousands… [A]s dusk set in, a Gretna
\nSheriff showed up, jumped out of his patrol vehicle… A helicopter
\narrived and used the wind from its
\nblades to blow away our flimsy structures. As we retreated, the sheriff
\nloaded up his truck<\/span> with our food and water<\/span>.      …read the entire essay<\/font><\/a>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n



\nLarry Bradshaw<\/span> is chief shop steward of the Paramedic Chapter, SEIU Local 790;  Lorrie Beth
\nSlonsky<\/span> is a steward of the same chapter.  As Counterpunch notes<\/a>, both also write for Socialist Worker<\/a>.
\n+ See their Hardball interview (September 13)<\/a>, with video.
\n+ The above report was apparently confirmed<\/a> by Bostonian Cathey Golden<\/span> and her son, who were part of the group.
\n<\/em><\/font><\/div>\n<\/div>\n


\nEmphasis <\/span>added.  It is one
\nthing to do wrong by people a thousand miles and two layers of
\nbureaucracy away; quite another to do wrong by people in your own
\ndistrict, or even the next, who are suffering before your eyes. 
\nThere are a select few hundred people who were criminally negligent<\/span> during this disaster, and most lived within a few hundred miles of its center.<\/p>\n

Read the entire essay<\/a>,
\nwhich is rather more severe than my quotes above.  <\/p>\n

UPDATE<\/span>:  I note that Gretna police chief Arthur Lawson<\/span> confirmed<\/a>
\nthat his officers, “along with those from the Jefferson Parish
\nSheriff’s Office and the Crescent City Connection Police,” sealed off
\nthe bridge.  \n<\/div>\n

\n<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Most of the people writing about New Orleans and other destroyed cities are confused about where to direct their purest, most blazing anger.  It shouldn’t be directed at the federal officials or other meta-organizers who failed to organize or prepare in time — although they were terribly negligent, each relying on other parts of a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":135,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[207],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-204","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-indescribable"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/longestnow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/longestnow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/longestnow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/longestnow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/135"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/longestnow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=204"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/longestnow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/longestnow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/longestnow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/longestnow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}